Does Your Dry Cleaning Lose It Press In Your Closet Overnight?

Do I Have Too Many Clothes...or Is My Closet Too Small?

5 Tips for Organizing Your Closet

I recently asked a friend and Professional Organizer, Ruthann Betz-Essinger, to share some ideas about organizing my closets, and I thought I'd share her suggestions with you.

One of my problems is having too much in my closet so when I bring my dry cleaning home, freshly pressed by the great pressers at Champion, my clothes don't stay looking freshly pressed for very long.

So here are Ruthann's suggestions for dealing with my space issue:

Make a home for everything in your closet. That way it's easy to put things away. It is only when you don't have a place to put something that things begin to pile up and get cluttered. If you are going to buy a new pair of shoes or piece of clothing, know where that item is going to live. If your closet only has enough room for 10 pairs of shoes then you know you are going to have to get rid of an old pair. Think of it as adding and subtracting. If you are going to add something new - then what are you going to subtract?

Figure out which clothes you wear and which you don't. Here's a good way to do this. When you're changing out clothes for the season, turn your hangers around the opposite way you normally do. As you wear the item and return it to the closet - put it back in the normal way. After the season is over take note as to which items of clothing are still facing the opposite way. These are the items you need to get rid of because for some reason you are ignoring them.

Use the same kind of hanger for all the clothes in your closet. This will make your closet look and feel more organized and your clothing will hang more uniformly in the closet.

Use clear containers so you can see what is in them. You can also label the container to help you remember what's inside. Use the same kind of container throughout the closet to make it look and feel more organized. Your eyes see the like containers and this gives you the impression of well-organized space - even if the insides of the containers are not so perfect.

Take out all the clothes you can't wear. Why should you be reminded that you are not that size? Store the items in containers somewhere else or better yet donate them to a charity. Only keep what you can wear so that you will not be so discouraged or guilty that you are only wearing a small portion of your clothes. The average American wears 20% of their wardrobe 80% of the time.

If you'd like to talk with Ruthann about organizing your closet, your entire home, your garage or your office, call her at 205.222.0099. Check out her web site at www.JustOrganized.com.